SO now it’s official: childminders are the non-family childcare option chosen by a majority of mothers who go back to work in their babies’ first year. Childminders, who in Ireland are almost completely unregulated.

SHOCK! Horror! Two-thirds of Limerick’s creches failed HSE inspection reports made between 2011 and this year.

SO THAT’S what you meant, Lucinda Creighton, by “a politics of substance, not of sound-bites.” You have risked your political career for your beliefs. Even if the boys are right when they say you will pay the penalty for making your party sweat, you can sleep easy at night.

SO far, not one woman has voted against the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill, even though it is inadequate. Not one woman has stood up for her fellow women and said “I will not call you a criminal if you seek to end your pregnancy in this State.”

EDUCATION Minister Ruairi Quinn should have thought before his proposal for an effective 10% cut in educational provision for children for special needs put the heart cross-ways in parents all over the country.

I COULDN’T believe my eyes but it was all over the papers. The G8 wants growth.

ONE thousand women attended the meeting in the Mansion House, Dublin on Apr 14, 1971, when the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement was established.

HOW can any progress be made for children in Ireland if every single time anyone suggests an alternative approach to their care they are accused of wanting to send women back to the kitchen?

BABIES shouldn’t go to creches.Nor should toddlers. Three-year-olds shouldn’t go to creche full-time. It’s as simple as that.

WATCH them riding on, the three musketeers, Alan Shatter, James Reilly and Phil Hogan!